The Roads to Carbon Neutral – Episode 7 – Changing Winds

Julia Rose, Head of Development TotalEnergies, Offshore Wind UK

Here in Scotland, you cannot deny the mighty force of the wind. And if you go out to sea, the wind blows even stronger. So if you want to harvest wind and wind energy, that's where you must go. In TotalEnergies, we've been working in the offshore territory for many, many years, and there's now an opportunity to take these skills into offshore wind, building the basis for a carbon neutral future.

I've been coming up to Scotland quite frequently for work since I started in my role, and it's a very beautiful place to work. One should add that here in Scotland the weather conditions can be quite rough, but that's also the reason we're here. The UK in general obviously has a big benefit in terms of offshore wind. It's an island and it's got a lot of coastline. Wind speeds are typically higher on the sea than they are on the land simply because there are less obstructions and the flat sea essentially acts as an accelerator.

We can already see a lot of investment in offshore wind in the UK and in Scotland. UK is second only to China in terms of installed capacity of offshore wind. In fact, I think it was earlier this year that there was more electricity produced by wind power than by gas, for the very first time.

My career started in conventional power generation. I spent the first ten years or so working on gas and steam fired power plants. There’s a lot of complexity to these projects. When there was an opportunity to take these skills I had learned and bring them across into the renewables industry and specifically offshore wind, I jumped on to it.

TotalEnergies have many, many years of experience working in the oil and gas space, designing, building and operating big projects and facilities in this harsh offshore environment. Just over three years ago, TotalEnergies invested into the Seagreen project, together with our partners from SSE Renewables. Seagreen is around 27 kilometres off the coast of Scotland. It's now Scotland's largest offshore wind farm, with a total of 114 turbines. As of this year, Seagreen is fully operational and can supply up to 1.6 million households in Scotland with green electricity. So that's around two thirds of all households in Scotland. The scale of these projects is extraordinary. Developing, building, and operating an offshore wind farm is quite a feat and it takes a diverse team of specialists to come together to make it happen.

Michelle Aitken, Head of HSE TotalEnergies, Offshore Wind UK

I grew up in Norway, so I grew up right next to the sea. My parents both worked in offshore oil and gas, so I just naturally followed in that direction. And then two years ago, I made the jump into offshore wind, and it's been the best decision I ever made. Offshore wind is still a relatively new industry, so we're essentially building it from the ground up and being able to use our past background and experience to do that in a safe and responsible manner is quite an exciting project to be part of.

Martin Mciver, Operations Manager TotalEnergies, Offshore Wind UK

So, I transitioned into offshore wind at the start of this year, just as the Seagreen project was ramping up. I was previously ten years oil and gas working in the North Sea. It’s a very harsh environment, so we need to make sure that the foundations and the turbines are able to withstand everything the North Sea can throw at it, in the height of winter. We've looked at the design and we're at the forefront of the industry.

Julia Rose, Head of Development TotalEnergies, Offshore Wind UK

We're only on the very first steps of this journey. And there's estimates that in order to reach net zero in the future, we'd have to build another 100,000 offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind has very rapidly grown to be one of the leading renewable technologies, and rightly so. It's pretty much an unlimited source of renewable power, which is absolutely instrumental to move us into a lower carbon, more sustainable future.